John Travolta to Star as Murdered Speedboat Pioneer in ‘Speed Kills’

Born in 1927, Donald Aronow made a name for himself as the pioneer behind the modern-day speedboat. He devised several models of seafaring vessels that matured into industry standards, and personally built boats for such luminaries as George H.W. Bush, the Shah of Iran, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Aronow’s signature creation, the so-called “cigarette boat” (you know, the long and slim ones they used in Miami Vice) became a favorite of cocaine merchants due to its great speed and nimble maneuverability.

Colluding with known drug-runners would bring Aronow some measure of fame and wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but on the downside it also resulted in his unceremonious murder in 1987 near his boat-retail facility in Miami. The man lived an eventful life, and now his memory will receive the ultimate commemoration: a biopic-thriller in which John Travolta will most likely wear a goofy hairpiece.

Deadline reports that in the elegantly titled Speed Kills, Travolta will give his take on Don Aronow’s life and times, playing the boating mogul in his later years. For the actor this marks the latest in a series of performances tackling real-life figures notable in their field: Travolta wowed audiences as volatile lawyer Robert Shapiro on America Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpsonlast year, and more recently wrapped the title role on gangster picture The Life and Death of John Gotti. This role should offer Travolta another opportunity to do some of his signature emphatic performing, as Aronow was reputedly a larger-than-life figure who loved fast boats, fast money, and fast women. But of course, the question is what majestic hairpiece Travolta will don to complete this performance. A quick image-search of Aronow reveals that the man had thick, lustrous, wavy black hair right up until the year of his death. Hopefully the film’s bald-cap budget will be hefty.